We are in our mid twenties and have been together for 7 years almost. This obviously means when we met, we were pretty young. He has always known that he was ambitious and wanted to accomplish very big things (own property, invest etc) but was held back a bit in college due to reasons he could not control. From the beginning he also knew I wanted to go to law school, and that was constant for me throughout undergrad.

Now while he was trying to get back on his feet during his hold back in college, I was supportive in every way. If he needed something done, school work, outside errands, literally anything I would do it. We were living together in an apartment that was paid for from my full ride scholarship and I was more than happy to help him however I could.

My biggest flaw during that time is that my parents had me in a mental hold. We are both immigrants but his parents are much less conservative than mine. I was a girl who had been so indoctrinated by her parents so much that I was afraid to do anything that would upset them or oppose their beliefs. I wasn’t close to them and they were not aware of my daily life in college but I was always afraid of telling them about our very serious relationship. When I look back even I myself cannot explain why I was so afraid other than I was weak and suffering from some kind of weird pseudo Stockholm syndrome. Despite the emotional abuse I’d experienced by my parents, they had sacrificed a lot for me (they made sure to remind me of this my entire life) to be in the position I was and because of this I couldn’t defy them. Even during that time I was fighting with myself and would plan out these events in my head where I’d finally tell them just to let myself down in the end. Another flaw of mine was that I wasn’t very communicative and had a lot immature notions of what a woman in a relationship should be like.

All that to say that I was supportive, I was going above and beyond to help him stay on track, I was cooking, cleaning, etc etc but I wasn’t perfect and can accept that.

Fast forward to a year before Covid, I graduate undergrad, we both move back to our parent’s homes, and I begin to prep for law school. He had always told me that while I was prepping for / in law school I wouldn’t have to work and he would take care of me etc. I appreciated all this but I am not the type of person to see my SO struggling and not help. So while studying for the LSAT (no small task) I continued helping him with getting his degree. He got sick and diagnosed with a chronic disease and I was there every step of the way. He would beg me to leave him because he was sick but I wouldn’t hear it. Anyhow we got past that initial fear of the illness too and I start law school on a full ride scholarship (again).

A year into me being in law school, he finally graduated from undergrad (I continued helping him with his course work while in my first year). By this time, my family knows we are together etc but we are no longer living together. He invites me to move in with his family and we fight about that during my entire first year of Law school until I finally build the courage to tell my family that I am moving out and moving in with him and his family. They don’t take it well but I handle it. So I move into his family home and I’m hoping things will be better but we fight a lot and I sense that he is not really that excited that I am in law school.

Before I even started law school he explained to me that he no longer felt he would be supportive of me going if I would get a lot of student debt. I completely understood, despite being hurt, and even told him I was willing to forgo going to law school because the chances of going to law school without debt was close to none. I even started looking for other jobs. When I least expected it, I got an acceptance with a full scholarship. He seemed excited for me but evidently after moving in, I sensed that the resentment was there.

We’ve had a lot of fights within this last year. I am now in my 4/6 semester and graduate next year and he fully reveals that essentially my being in law school is a burden to him. Mind you at this point he has graduated undergrad (he graduated at the end of my first year of law school) and is working and saving a ton of money. This hurts. Not only because he knew this was my goal but that he is now in a position making money and all the promises he made me are out the window. Forget the money even, I just want his support. I want to hear “Babe I know you can do this, let me help how I can” the same way I did for him. But no apparently because I am not bringing in any money I am now stopping him from reaching his goal he told me about 7 years ago. I have been there EVERY step of the way and this just stings. He finally admitted last night that I would have aligned better with his goals if I had started working after I graduated undergrad and not gone to law school.

I am leaving out a lot of details for the sake of the length of this post but leaving just enough so you have an idea of the relationship progression. I want outside objective perspectives (even grill into me if you have to I do not shy away from constructive criticism). I am still living in his family home and I feel more alone than ever. I know deep in me that he can’t love me like I love him because there is nothing in this world that would stop me from being there for him in whatever way he needed it. But am I just being an idiot at this point? Should I just face the reality that he won’t love me unconditionally the way I do? Am I an ass hole for leaving him with the stress of making the money while I am in law school? Is my expectation unrealistic in the way I wish he would react?